A police caution is a formal warning given to adults who admit they are guilty of first-time minor offences. According to the Home Office, a police caution forms part of a criminal record. A caution may affect both employment and travel prospects. A caution may be considered in court in the event of the offender being tried for a similar offence. A caution remains in police records for a minimum of 5 years but usually indefinately. This also saves court time and public expense. This will hopefully prevent this man from offending again. However should he do so a more serious sentence is likely.

As I read your comment I hear that the European Courts have ruled in favour of homophobic Al Qaida suspect, Abu Qatada who is now free to go home to his family and not be deported to his native Jordan. It seems, therefore that the courts favour people who are not even European, let alone British citizens. Such attitudes only play into the hands of the far-right who are not necessarily friends of us either. When people start taking the law into their own hands because the CPS, the police and ECHR fail to protect us we will end up with mob rule and there can be no justice when we have mob rule as innocent people will end up getting hurt.

How does this show that reporting hate crimes is effective? They showed up, gave a warning and later there was an apology when it was clear the video was out there. Without that what would the police have done?

We’ve seen similar bigoted rants on public transport treated much more severely

– Now it’s possibly a little unfair and vague to do this comparison. But there is an element of truth to it. This is simply not right, discrimination is discrimination, regardless of what you are, treat it with the same consequences across the board, otherwise it isn’t very effective!

Its the same for transexuals. I almost killed myself from grief off one guy before the cops did anything and when they did i didnt even get an apology. They are lucky they got that. The guy that harrassed me got a slapped wrist. It takes the P*** when others are sent to prison for racist attacks

Perhaps it is a little unfair to make this comparison. Yet, truth lies in the idea that this government and the police (even if transport police is a private organisation) have to enforce that ALL discrimination should be treated the same across the board. If you don’t ensure this, it simply isn’t effective, and people suffer because of this.

No, Liam. I’ve lived and worked in an area brimming with people like that homophobe. You seem to think he couldn’t have been so offensive unless drunk. That’s incorrect. You need to be aware that there are 1000s and 1000s of people who mouth off like that when they are stone cold sober.

No doubt he is sorry only because he had made an absolute fool of himself and got himself pilloried on YouTube. I don’t think ‘sorry’ is good enough for that tirade of hate that spewed from his mouth. Maybe he will blame drink for it but personally I think that alcohol should be considered an aggravating factor and not a mitigating one when it comes to bringing people to justice after they had behaved like that while under the influence of drink. Whether or not he was intoxicated at the time was never mentioned but who goes to Blackpool just to drink tea and play Scrabble anyway?

It amuses me when someone in authority says something along the lines of: the matter is closed because I’m telling you it’s closed.

No it’s not.

The fact that the men accepted the apology, days after saying they found the man was treated leniently suggests that there’s been some hard bargaining behind the scenes. Which is their choice to accept.

However, the fact remains that a conductor asked the abused people to change carriage and the abuser got away with behaviour that would have not been accepted had it been a racist rant.

Those two actions affect us all, not just those abused, and the BTP has no right and no justification to say the matter is closed.

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